"There be High Winds Today, Aye!"

The Mighty Lake Michigan is tearing up to give us a proper squall today. The winds are whipping through the canyons of the city like they're late to an Irishman's wake. (And thereby going to miss all the free licquor which will be drunk by the Irishman's mourning family. An old turn of phrase. Which I just made up.) Things are SO BAD, that parts of Evanston (the town) have been closed, altogether. Construction workers there, were injured, when the wind collapsed their work site. Flights have been cancelled and delayed into O'Hare and Midway because of the wind.

Here, a little closer to home, the wind has begun to show itself as well...

The building that I work in has begun sway like a drunkard. If you close your eyes, you can actually feel the sway happening.

On top of that, the creaking and popping from the windows of the office are loud, loud, LOUD!

If I look through my co-workers office, I can see the edge of a distant office building, sway in and out of the edge of his window frame. I can actually SEE the movement of this building, in the high wind.

I'm not worried, though. I don't fret that the building will collapse into a massive pile of rubble. Because the windows aren't breaking. Or cracking. You see, the building is covered by a tight skin of plate glass windows. And before the pressure gets so high that there's a possibility of collapse, the "skin" of windows will stretch beyond the breaking point.

When I hear pops and cracks from the glass shattering around my office or on other floors, Well, time to pack it up and hoof it down 23 flights of stairs and hope that I beat the oncoming disaster.

Until then, I am content to live and work in this galleon ship, of a building. And her creaks and pops will remind me that she's built well and can survive a high, Lake Michigan wind...

Cheers,
Mr. B

PS. One more thing. If I'm wrong and I die in a building collapse, I give my friends permission to use this blog entry as ironic observation, for submission to the local papers. I ask only that they preface my credit with the following titles "Brilliant Writer and Lover of Many Womens, Chris Biddle." I don't think anyone will mind the small, white lie, after my unfortunate death.